I'm excited to begin the final semester of my MAT program prior to student teaching in spring 2017. The reality of becoming a high school English teacher feels closer than ever and it feels good to have those daily moments that reaffirm my decision to pursue a career in teaching. It took me longer than many to realize that teaching was where I could do my best work. I first read Little Women in 5th grade and have wanted to become Jo March ever since -- a writer, a reader, a performer, an independent and thoughtful person -- it was later that I realized I also wanted to become a teacher just like she is.
I graduated from UNC in 2011 with a BA in English and began working as the Assistant Director of an all-girls summer camp in the fall of 2011. This was the same camp where I grew up spending summers as a young girl and where I worked during my summers in college. It is here where I realized my own talents, came to value belonging to a close community with shared values and encountered strong female role models whose teaching philosophies have contributed to my own. As I improved my writing skills under the mentorship of my directors and saw the capacity I had to bring out the best in others as a leader, I came to understand why I needed to enter the field of teaching.
I just celebrated my one-year anniversary of owning my first home on James Island, where I live with my pet hedgehog, Gladys. I have been working as a baker at Callie's Biscuits for the past three years. I love cooking and wining/dining in Charleston and doing my best to unwind and experience the latest and greatest the area has to offer. This includes regular therapy sessions on the beach, bike rides, reading, writing, and spending time with the important people in my life.
The Part Where I Become Technologically Savvy
I used to be good at this stuff when social media was first born. I had mad HTML skills that I used to personalize my Myspace page beginning in middle school. I used to be able to download music for free. Nowadays, I'm able to kind of bumble my way through the internet and generally figure things out without accidentally giving my computer a virus. I feel like my weakness is not so much an inability to learn about how to use different technologies, but rather a lack of internet street smarts -- I don't know that certain programs and apps even exist in the first place. I'm out of the loop.
My goal in this class, then, is to expose myself to as many different programs as I possibly can, figure out how to use them, and then figure out how I can use them to teach certain parts of reading and writing. I anticipate that some kinds of technology may be more appropriate for teaching one aspect of a text than others. I hope to come out of this class with more tools in my teacher fanny-pack that will enable me to capture my students' attention, hold that attention, and even teach them things they'll remember and be able to use later on in their lives. I want to be at least savvy enough so that my boyfriend, who sits all-knowing on his technological Mt. Olympus with his Masters in Educational Technology, will stop making fun of me for not having GoogleDrive or knowing how to Spotify.
<<--- my fave computer <3
Prezi
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, first published in 1960, is an essential work of literature included on the syllabi of many high school English courses. It remains relevant today as some of the prejudiced attitudes of characters in the novel are still perpetuated -- both subtly and explicitly.
I chose to create a Prezi focusing on the historical context of the novel so readers in a high school classroom could have a better understanding of events going on at the time the novel was set -- events that drastically altered the lives of Maycomb residents and affected their attitudes toward different people in the community. A "newspaper front page" type of format seemed appropriate since it would allow me to focus on different "articles" like The Great Depression, The New Deal and the Scottsboro Trials -- all events that inspired some of the plot and character development in the novel. I think this format is also conducive to having students reflect on what they have already read up to that point.
While it would make sense to talk a little bit about the historical context before students start reading the novel, I've geared this Prezi to take place in the middle of reading the novel. By this point, students have had the chance to form some assumptions on characters on their own. Having this take place in the middle of the story can give students a chance to reflect on those assumptions and respond to this new information, perhaps in the form of a "letter to the editor." Students could also create their own front page focused on what they think an actual day in Maycomb would be like.
Digital Storytelling Project
I apologize. This got outrageous fast, and before I knew it, I had a way-too-long narration/image sequence describing the descent into Hell from Dante Alighieri's The Inferno (taught in a 10th grade Honors ELA II class at Wando High School. The Inferno is the first part of the 14th-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, and it is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. Since it was published so long ago, students sometimes have difficulty understanding Dante's journey through the nine circles of Hell.
The purpose of this video is to succintly describe each circle of Hell, the sinners who reside there and the kinds of punishments they receive in a way students can understand.
I honestly did not think this video would go on for so long until I actually narrated the video sequence. While it is almost twenty minutes long, I think I could very easily assign students to watch a certain part of the video that corresponds to what they are currently reading. I hope that the background music doesn't detract from the narration -- had to have a little sense of humor throughout this process so I included what I thought would be an appropriate background soundtrack, including Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" at the very end.
Fun story...turns out there is a 15-minute maximum for uploading Windows MovieMaker videos onto youtube, so I had a fun time Sunday night panicking and attempting to split it into two parts. Failed about 10 times before finally figuring things out (no thanks to people on internet help sites). This took a lot of time and caused a great deal of anxiety, but I hope the final product(s) are worth it! Also, the videos should have background music in addition to my narration, but I hear that sometimes these sites invalidate the music due to copyright, although I did use purchased music through my iTunes library. Hopefully it's a non-issue!
Editing Activity
After Leslie Gibson’s guest presentation last Tuesday, I started thinking about the very real possibility that all of my students may not have any-time access to a computer outside of school. Keeping that in mind, I wanted to create an editing activity that could be done using word processing software (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs) or on loose-leaf paper with writing utensils.
I’m sure that by the time of the semester when my class gets into editing their first major paper assignment, my students will already have acknowledged and embraced some of my quirkiness; therefore, changing all of the lyrics from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to reflect a desire to be in a far-off land where grammatical errors do not exist, and showing a video I’ve created where images of grammatical errors coincide with my altered lyrics, will seem commonplace to my students, and they, too, will want to join me “somewhere over the rainbow” where their papers are free of superficial grammatical mistakes.
Once I amaze them with the music video, I will then refer them to a large poster I will have designed. The poster will explain the method of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” editing. Using either the highlighter option on word processing software or actual highlighters/markers provided by me, students will review their own papers (or their peers’ papers) with six colors to correspond with six frequently-observed grammatical errors (sorry indigo, but I’m leaving you out because you resemble blue and purple too closely and I don’t want things to get confusing). Instead of having purple correspond with an error, I wanted to specify it as a positive color so that the editing process isn’t viewed as being too negative.
Here is an example of a key, although this can be adjusted by the teacher depending on which errors are most frequently seen while assessing papers:
Red – capitalization error
Orange – spelling error
Yellow – punctuation error
Green – wrong vocabulary word
Blue – sentence fragment/run-on sentence
Purple – exemplary work (good examples of vocabulary choice, sentence structure, etc.)
After the students evaluate their own or each other’s work, I would like to then compile a few examples from each category of errors and review them with the entire class. I think it would be a good idea to use my own writing as the first example, so that students can feel like we are on the same page and understand that writing is essentially editing and revising. No one – no matter how talented of a writer they may be – ever writes something down for the first time in its perfect form.
My goal with this activity is not only to correct superficial editing mistakes, but for students to gain an understanding of writing as a process – to see a paper less as an assignment/grade and more as a means to achieve getting one’s point across in the most coherent and expressive way possible. Understanding how much writing would be an essential part of having a successful career was a critical realization for me. I want my students to be more prepared than I was. Hopefully, cultivating an environment where editing and revising is expected and seen as a positive process will help my students become better writers and get them over the rainbow, where the bluebirds fly and all that jazz…
Oral History Project
Women's Literature Unit -- Oral "Her-story" Project
Purpose: To promote inclusion of women's voices in discussions on politics, society and culture
Task: Conduct oral "her-stories" on two females describing, in detail, their unique experiences as growing up female over the course of the 20th and/or 21st centuries. Each interview must be between 15 and 30 minutes. At least one interviewee must be over the age of 60. Both interviewees must be over the age of 30.
From left to right: (1) My grandmother, Betty Jane Nemmers, taken in the 1950s when she was engaged to my grandfather, Amedeo DeAngelis; (2) My grandmother, now Betty Jane DeAngelis, cooking with my mother (bottom right) and cousins in the late 1960s; (3) Betty Jane, taken several years before she died in 2006 in her late 70s.
If my "Mom-Mom" was still alive, I would definitely conduct a "Her-story" with her. She had a treasure trove of stories about growing up poor with eight siblings and argumentative parents under one roof.
Potential topics to discuss: - difference in experience with parents/house rules/discipline vs. that of their male siblings - attending school/interactions with teachers - participation in the working world; hiring/interviewing; interactions with co-workers and supervisors; pay - dating; marriage expectations; household chores and errands - raising children or deciding not to raise children - reflections on changes in politics, technology, style, standards of beauty, and culture - health issues - growing older - any other aspect of life that can be compared/contrasted with the experience of other women from the same or different generations
Potential interviewees: - Family members - Neighbors - Family friends - Teachers - Coaches - Employers/co-workers
You should only interview people you know. We will discuss interview considerations (such as where to hold the interview, how to use technology to conduct interviews, as well as interview etiquette) in class before you conduct your interviews.
Timeline: Day 1: Together in class, we will discuss oral histories and look at examples. Begin thinking of potential people to interview. Day 2: In class, you independently select three oral histories to listen to and summarize using three of the six types of summary frames from your notes. You will pair up twice to share your findings and listen to your partner's findings. Day 3: Together in class, we will discuss interview prep, including resources to use, ethics and other considerations. Turn in a list of the people you plan to interviewee, making sure to list your relation to that person. Days 4-8 (plus weekend): Conduct your oral her-stories outside of class and type up a list of (at least) 10 questions you posed to your interviewee, as well as a 200-250 word abstract of the purpose of each recorded interview. Days 9-10: You will give a five-minute presentation focusing on both of your interviewees, discussing highlights from your interview, information you found surprising or interesting, or comparing/contrasting the experience of the two interviewees with each other or what your previous assumptions about a topic were before learning about the topic from your interviewees (i.e. raising children, seeking promotions at work). Your video and transcript should be uploaded to the class wiki by the end of day 12.
40% - Content - Student has collected a complete biography of both interviewees, focusing on major life events and all aspects listed above in the "Task" section
20% - Preparation - It is evident that the student conducted research on his/her interviewees, prepared appropriate questions and follow-up questions, and transitioned effectively between topics
15% - Typed Questions & Abstract - Student has provided a list of at least ten questions asked to the interviewees, as well as a 200-250 word abstract on each interview
10% - Presentation - Student has effectively, and in five minutes, summarized both of his/her interviewees' oral histories to the class
10% - Etiquette - Student has demonstrated professionalism and courtesy in dress, language, body language, humor and graciousness to the interviewees
5% - Archive - Student has posted working links to the videos and transcripts to the class wiki by the end of day 12
I decided to design a wiki page based around an Honors English II syllabus from a friend who teaches at Wando High School. I have included six main headings: Important Documents, Readings, Notes, Presentations, Discussion, and Major Written Assignments. My goal with this week’s project was to create a wiki that is well organized, allows students to showcase their work, makes it easy for students to retrieve important documents, and clearly conveys my expectations.
The semester is divided into seven units, each of which have their own page under the “Readings” template. Here, I will post PDFs to readings that are not included in the students’ textbooks. Check out Unit 1 for examples. Posting links to the readings make it so I don’t have to worry about emailing links out to individual students. Instead of asking me where to find readings, I can provide all the documents necessary on this wiki.
The next template, entitled “Notes,” will be a place for students to both access and publish notes on readings and any other discussions we have learned in class, organized by unit. Check out Unit 2 notes for examples of what I might post. I anticipate using this page for the following purposes:
Posting guided notes for students to print out and bring to class to complete
Posting notes on historical context/author background for students to read before coming to class
Each student will be responsible for posting notes for at least two classes throughout the course of the semester. They will know ahead of time what day they are responsible for, and will have to complete their notes according to a rubric before posting them on the site
Links that direct students to videos and other notes describing various concepts: MLA citations, figurative language, grammar rules, etc.
My next heading is “Presentations.” Students will be responsible for creating various independent/small-group presentations throughout the course of the semester. If you go to the “Book Trailers” tab, you will see where I have posted directions for the assignment, a rubric, and examples of book trailers that I have personally created.
The following heading is a link to the class discussion board. Every week, I will post five discussion prompts. Students must respond to two of them with a passage of 250-500 words per response. Students must also post a 100-word minimum response to three of their classmates. Individual responses would be due three days before the deadline, ensuring students stay on track with reading and allowing students time to respond to each other’s posts. Responses to posts will be due the final day of the week (Sunday at 11:59PM). Check out “Week 1” for a list of potential prompts.
My final tab is for “Major Written Assignments.” We will hypothetically have three major written assignments over the course of the semester – an argument essay, a narrative essay, and a research paper. This tab is a place for students to post their outlines, rough drafts, final drafts and any other required documents. If I wanted to do a collaborative writing assignment, I feel like wikispaces.com would be a great avenue to utilize for that. This space would definitely be used to workshop student essays, and I think it would be a great venue for me to provide feedback quicker than I may be able to do via individual conferencing in the classroom (although I am a large proponent of face-to-face conferencing!) Check out “Research Essay” for examples of files I might have in this tab.
While this assignment was time-consuming, I enjoyed thinking about how I could format the Wiki to be as organized as possible. I want my students to be able to access information and collaborate with ease. I definitely feel like this wiki hits at least three of the four C’s with regards to teaching with technology: communication (allows me to communicate my expectations and instructions for assignments and for students to respond to those instructions), collaboration (allow my students to work with each other on group presentations, writing assignments and reading responses) and critical thinking (my students are expected to write critical responses to at least two of the five discussion prompts I’ll issue each week). As far as creativity goes, the wiki really hits on that, as well. Having the chance to showcase their work, and really just knowing that their work will be accessible by their peers, will hopefully motivate students to learn from their peers and attempt to create something unique/different from their peers. I can definitely see myself using a wiki for each ELA course that I teach when I get hired!
Blog
I’m really excited about the prospect of putting my blog idea into action. Several semesters ago, I created a skeleton for a unit plan on Lord of the Flies by William Golding. This novel is typically taught to ninth graders. I want to dedicate a large portion of this unit to exploring thematic issues of civilization versus savagery. My plan is to deeply immerse students in the novel by essentially reimagining the classroom as if we were all stranded together on an uncharted island. We will create our own “laws,” divide the class into 2-4 teams (depending on size of the class) and each team will design a banner, appoint leaders and receive an accessory (such as matching bandanas) to wear in the classroom during the unit, which will last approximately ten days. In addition to discussing the novel and its thematic elements, we will also put the group power dynamics into play through challenges where groups or individuals must compete against one another.
As groups win and lose challenges and leadership positions fluctuate within groups, it will be essential to discuss how changes in group dynamics in the novel can be compared to changes in group dynamics in our classroom experience. I thought it would be a great idea to have each student create an individual blog in which he/she reflects on group dynamics, completes activities, and writes narrative-style entries. All of these blogs will be visible to other students, and groups can use their blogs as strategical tools in order to indirectly manipulate the strategy of the other group. To be more precise, a student could allude to using a certain strategy for completing a challenge, knowing that others will read his/her entry, when the student actually plans on using an alternate secret strategy. If this seems a little confusing, it’s because the assignment is intended to confuse and trick. Characters in The Lord of the Flies use manipulation to get others to do their bidding. Obviously, I will have to be conscientious about my role in monitoring the blog activity, since it is possible for students to get too overwhelmed or involved with the competitive aspect of the activity. Students will create their blogs on the first day, write an introductory profile entry (similar to one from the Survivor website) and include a picture of him or herself with the team banner in the background and wearing the team accessory. I will include links to all of my students’ blogs under a “Lord of the Flies Blogs” tab on my class wiki. Students will be encouraged to use the blog site Weebly https://education.weebly.com/. This site will allow me to monitor the blog activity. Students will write in their blogs daily. Length and type of writing assignments will vary and be geared towards meeting a variety of writing standards. I hope that my students will not only be receptive to the idea of daily writing but that they will be enthusiastic about truly immersing themselves in the novel. I think that type of immersion method is a great way to get kids excited about learning, and that if they are having fun, they are more likely to retain what they are learning and apply their knowledge to other areas.
I had a bright shining moment when I recognized one of the emerging technologies on a variety of “Top 5” emerging technology lists for 2015-2016 – 3D printers! While my friend is designing a super-hero costume using a 3D printer and I’ve heard them referenced on several episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, I’ve never considered how 3D printers could be used in an educational capacity – turns out a lot of people have already made the case for how 3D printing can enhance learning from K-12 students.
In “Jaw-Dropping Classroom 3D Printer Creations,” Todd Finley defines 3D printing, explains what students can create with 3D printers, and further elaborates on the potential of 3D printing. In laymen’s terms, 3D printing is a process in which “solid 3D objects are created, one layer of material after another, from a single digital file” (Finley). There are three ways to accomplish this process: by creating an original object using a 3D modeling program, by downloading a modifiable 3D template from a website, or using a 3D scanner to take your own measurements of an object. When it comes to creating objects with 3D printers, the sky seems to be the limit. The devices have produced prosthetic body parts, bones, food, clothing, musical instruments, cars, fully functioning guns, and even houses.
When thinking specifically of how 3D printers are used in the realm of education, we may automatically consider more mathematical or scientific applications for the device, but there are many ways to enhance learning in ELA classes with a 3D printer. One of my projects for a unit on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass involves students creating a board game centered on a slave’s perilous journey to escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Students would be required to consider various obstacles slaves may encounter on their path to freedom and to incorporate those obstacles somehow in the scheme of the board game. Imagine how neat it would be if students could design an original board game and use a 3D printer to bring it to life! Having a 3D printer available could also enable students and teachers to replicate settings from novels so that students can visualize events or epic tales that take place over a vast expanse of space (think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Odyssey, and The Epic of Gilgamesh). Another project where students could utilize 3D printing technology would be for a class author study, where students are required to present on an author of their independent reading selections. I have seen teachers construct three-sided poster displays where one side has a picture of the author, the second side has a biography of the author, and the third side has a summary of one of the author’s books. Using 3D printing technology, students could create a life-like representation of their authors, in whatever size needed (maybe even life-size!).
I was very excited to read in the article that the price of 3D printers are going down to about $500 (although the author notes that top-rated models cost more). While I don’t know of any teachers in the CCSD who currently use this technology, I imagine many teachers representing different subject areas would be excited about this technology and students would be enthusiastic about having a more tactile experience in the classroom. While I have never used a 3D printer, I would be excited about learning how to use one and teaching students how to use it. It would be especially neat for me to 3D print book covers for all my students’ writing pieces over the course of the semester to either give to them at the end of the school year or use as an annual class anthology to keep on my bookshelf. I can’t stop thinking about ways to use this technology and look forward to learning about how other teachers, specifically ELA teachers, might use it in their classrooms!
Social Media Project
Instagram! Teens are obsessed with filtering, posting, liking, commenting...why not harness this obsession and gear it towards a vocabulary exercise?! For my vocabulary activity, I want to use a (possibly pre-existing) class Instagram account for students to create a post for each of the ten vocabulary words for our unit (in this case, on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass). Depending on the size of my class, I will assign 1-3 students to a vocabulary word. The students will have to complete the following assignment for their vocabulary word: - Using yourselves and/or any props appropriate/relevant, take a picture that illustrates the definition of your word - Create a caption for your post, including:
The definition(s) of the word
Part of speech of the word
Pronunciation of the word
Etymology of the word
A sentence using the word (it might be a good idea to align your picture with the sentence you create!)
The sentences from the captions in the Instagram posts will be used, in some capacity, when the students take their vocabulary quiz at the end of the week. My hope is that by having the chance to use technology they are already familiar with, students will be more invested in the assignment and more successful at retaining definitions of our words. One way to make the assignment more exciting is to give students the chance to vote for their top three favorite examples. The winners will be recognized in my class newsletter/bulletin/blog.
Examples of vocabulary words from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:
For my revision project, I decided to update my original Prezi on the historical context of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
I liked my original newspaper headline format because I thought it matched well with the topic of historical context, but I felt like my content in the original was too wordy. I know my students would look at all the words on the page and groan.
To improve my page, I decided to eliminate and/or break up some of the text by supplementing it with YouTube videos narrating some of the historical context I'd previously written about in the original version. I did this because I thought that delivering the information through different modes would help keep my students engaged.
I also think I did a better job on the transitions from slide to slide in my new Prezi. After learning more about Prezi, I figured out how to zoom in on certain areas, which I believe will help my students know what information to focus on and prevent them from being overwhelmed by too much surrounding text.
Course Reflection
Having the chance to create projects with a different mode of technology each week was helpful. In the process of creating the weekly assignments, I would often see how a certain platform (like a Prezi) could be an appropriate mode for a certain work of literature or lesson to teach. In conjunction with the readings, having the chance to explore the technology hands on helped reinforce the important thing to remember about technology –- not all technology is good for all purposes. You must select the type of technology that will best enable you to enhance the learning of the students.
I want my students to have a chance to do assignments similar to those my classmates and I created over the course of the semester. Although we didn’t complete an actual oral history interview, I was very excited about the prospect of doing so with my students. A strength I saw in this mode of technology was that it really allows students to take control of their process and their final product. They are allowed a great deal of choice over who to interview within structured expectations of how the interview and transcription should be completed. One activity I found very helpful was the Windows Moviemaker digital storytelling assignment. I’ve used Windows Moviemaker several times for a previous class but I feel like I learn something new every time I return to that technology. It is highly time-consuming and thus I learned to “work smarter, not necessarily harder.” As far as an assignment that was not as helpful as I thought it would be, I suppose I’d have to go with the emerging technology assignment. While I was interested in hearing what everyone found, I would have liked the chance to explore some of these technologies in class hands-on. The same goes for the readings. I would have liked to explore some of the technologies mentioned in the readings in class together.
My conception of technology in the classroom has definitely changed. With so many available technologies, it is easier for teachers to go about use technology simply for the sake of using it. Participating in this class has reinforced the need to use technology deliberately and to always keep in mind the purpose of using that technology –- what do I want my students to learn? I’ve had a lot of fun doing these assignments and truly hope that my students will have fun and immerse themselves in their projects, as well. I’m also more aware than ever that technology evolves at a rapid pace. While I feel like I’ve caught up significantly, I know I’m probably still behind. That being said, I definitely have the humility to let my students demonstrate how to use technology if they’re clearly experts. Just because I’m being paid to teach doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be learning from my students! At the end of this class, I am more prepared, less overwhelmed, and ready to put some of my creations into action when I start student-teaching in January.
A Little about Me
Hi Dr. Maxwell and classmates!
I'm excited to begin the final semester of my MAT program prior to student teaching in spring 2017. The reality of becoming a high school English teacher feels closer than ever and it feels good to have those daily moments that reaffirm my decision to pursue a career in teaching. It took me longer than many to realize that teaching was where I could do my best work. I first read Little Women in 5th grade and have wanted to become Jo March ever since -- a writer, a reader, a performer, an independent and thoughtful person -- it was later that I realized I also wanted to become a teacher just like she is.
I g
raduated from UNC in 2011 with a BA in English and began working as the Assistant Director of an all-girls summer camp in the fall of 2011. This was the same camp where I grew up spending summers as a young girl and where I worked during my summers in college. It is here where I realized my own talents, came to value belonging to a close community with shared values and encountered strong female role models whose teaching philosophies have contributed to my own. As I improved my writing skills under the mentorship of my directors and saw the capacity I had to bring out the best in others as a leader, I came to understand why I needed to enter the field of teaching.
I just celebrated my one-year anniversary of owning my first home on James Island, where I live with my pet hedgehog, Gladys. I have been working as a baker at Callie's Biscuits for the past three years. I love cooking and wining/dining in Charleston and doing my best to unwind and experience the latest and greatest the area has to offer. This includes regular therapy sessions on the beach, bike rides, reading, writing, and spending time with the important people in my life.
The Part Where I Become Technologically Savvy
My goal in this class, then, is to expose myself to as many different programs as I possibly can, figure out how to use them, and then figure out how I can use them to teach certain parts of reading and writing. I anticipate that some kinds of technology may be more appropriate for teaching one aspect of a text than others. I hope to come out of this class with more tools in my teacher fanny-pack that will enable me to capture my students' attention, hold that attention, and even teach them things they'll remember and be able to use later on in their lives. I want to be at least savvy enough so that my boyfriend, who sits all-knowing on his technological Mt. Olympus with his Masters in Educational Technology, will stop making fun of me for not having GoogleDrive or knowing how to Spotify.
<<--- my fave computer <3
Prezi
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, first published in 1960, is an essential work of literature included on the syllabi of many high school English courses. It remains relevant today as some of the prejudiced attitudes of characters in the novel are still perpetuated -- both subtly and explicitly.
I chose to create a Prezi focusing on the historical context of the novel so readers in a high school classroom could have a better understanding of events going on at the time the novel was set -- events that drastically altered the lives of Maycomb residents and affected their attitudes toward different people in the community. A "newspaper front page" type of format seemed appropriate since it would allow me to focus on different "articles" like The Great Depression, The New Deal and the Scottsboro Trials -- all events that inspired some of the plot and character development in the novel. I think this format is also conducive to having students reflect on what they have already read up to that point.
While it would make sense to talk a little bit about the historical context before students start reading the novel, I've geared this Prezi to take place in the middle of reading the novel. By this point, students have had the chance to form some assumptions on characters on their own. Having this take place in the middle of the story can give students a chance to reflect on those assumptions and respond to this new information, perhaps in the form of a "letter to the editor." Students could also create their own front page focused on what they think an actual day in Maycomb would be like.
Digital Storytelling Project
I apologize. This got outrageous fast, and before I knew it, I had a way-too-long narration/image sequence describing the descent into Hell from Dante Alighieri's The Inferno (taught in a 10th grade Honors ELA II class at Wando High School. The Inferno is the first part of the 14th-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, and it is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. Since it was published so long ago, students sometimes have difficulty understanding Dante's journey through the nine circles of Hell.
The purpose of this video is to succintly describe each circle of Hell, the sinners who reside there and the kinds of punishments they receive in a way students can understand.
I honestly did not think this video would go on for so long until I actually narrated the video sequence. While it is almost twenty minutes long, I think I could very easily assign students to watch a certain part of the video that corresponds to what they are currently reading. I hope that the background music doesn't detract from the narration -- had to have a little sense of humor throughout this process so I included what I thought would be an appropriate background soundtrack, including Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" at the very end.
Fun story...turns out there is a 15-minute maximum for uploading Windows MovieMaker videos onto youtube, so I had a fun time Sunday night panicking and attempting to split it into two parts. Failed about 10 times before finally figuring things out (no thanks to people on internet help sites). This took a lot of time and caused a great deal of anxiety, but I hope the final product(s) are worth it! Also, the videos should have background music in addition to my narration, but I hear that sometimes these sites invalidate the music due to copyright, although I did use purchased music through my iTunes library. Hopefully it's a non-issue!
Editing Activity
After Leslie Gibson’s guest presentation last Tuesday, I started thinking about the very real possibility that all of my students may not have any-time access to a computer outside of school. Keeping that in mind, I wanted to create an editing activity that could be done using word processing software (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs) or on loose-leaf paper with writing utensils.
I’m sure that by the time of the semester when my class gets into editing their first major paper assignment, my students will already have acknowledged and embraced some of my quirkiness; therefore, changing all of the lyrics from “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to reflect a desire to be in a far-off land where grammatical errors do not exist, and showing a video I’ve created where images of grammatical errors coincide with my altered lyrics, will seem commonplace to my students, and they, too, will want to join me “somewhere over the rainbow” where their papers are free of superficial grammatical mistakes.
Once I amaze them with the music video, I will then refer them to a large poster I will have designed. The poster will explain the method of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” editing. Using either the highlighter option on word processing software or actual highlighters/markers provided by me, students will review their own papers (or their peers’ papers) with six colors to correspond with six frequently-observed grammatical errors (sorry indigo, but I’m leaving you out because you resemble blue and purple too closely and I don’t want things to get confusing). Instead of having purple correspond with an error, I wanted to specify it as a positive color so that the editing process isn’t viewed as being too negative.
Here is an example of a key, although this can be adjusted by the teacher depending on which errors are most frequently seen while assessing papers:
Red – capitalization error
Orange – spelling error
Yellow – punctuation error
Green – wrong vocabulary word
Blue – sentence fragment/run-on sentence
Purple – exemplary work (good examples of vocabulary choice, sentence structure, etc.)
After the students evaluate their own or each other’s work, I would like to then compile a few examples from each category of errors and review them with the entire class. I think it would be a good idea to use my own writing as the first example, so that students can feel like we are on the same page and understand that writing is essentially editing and revising. No one – no matter how talented of a writer they may be – ever writes something down for the first time in its perfect form.
My goal with this activity is not only to correct superficial editing mistakes, but for students to gain an understanding of writing as a process – to see a paper less as an assignment/grade and more as a means to achieve getting one’s point across in the most coherent and expressive way possible. Understanding how much writing would be an essential part of having a successful career was a critical realization for me. I want my students to be more prepared than I was. Hopefully, cultivating an environment where editing and revising is expected and seen as a positive process will help my students become better writers and get them over the rainbow, where the bluebirds fly and all that jazz…
Oral History Project
Women's Literature Unit -- Oral "Her-story" Project
Purpose: To promote inclusion of women's voices in discussions on politics, society and culture
Task: Conduct oral "her-stories" on two females describing, in detail, their unique experiences as growing up female over the course of the 20th and/or 21st centuries. Each interview must be between 15 and 30 minutes. At least one interviewee must be over the age of 60. Both interviewees must be over the age of 30.
From left to right: (1) My grandmother, Betty Jane Nemmers, taken in the 1950s when she was engaged to my grandfather, Amedeo DeAngelis; (2) My grandmother, now Betty Jane DeAngelis, cooking with my mother (bottom right) and cousins in the late 1960s; (3) Betty Jane, taken several years before she died in 2006 in her late 70s.
If my "Mom-Mom" was still alive, I would definitely conduct a "Her-story" with her. She had a treasure trove of stories about growing up poor with eight siblings and argumentative parents under one roof.
Potential topics to discuss:
- difference in experience with parents/house rules/discipline vs. that of their male siblings
- attending school/interactions with teachers
- participation in the working world; hiring/interviewing; interactions with co-workers and supervisors; pay
- dating; marriage expectations; household chores and errands
- raising children or deciding not to raise children
- reflections on changes in politics, technology, style, standards of beauty, and culture
- health issues
- growing older
- any other aspect of life that can be compared/contrasted with the experience of other women from the same or different generations
Potential interviewees:
- Family members
- Neighbors
- Family friends
- Teachers
- Coaches
- Employers/co-workers
You should only interview people you know. We will discuss interview considerations (such as where to hold the interview, how to use technology to conduct interviews, as well as interview etiquette) in class before you conduct your interviews.
Timeline:
Day 1: Together in class, we will discuss oral histories and look at examples. Begin thinking of potential people to interview.
Day 2: In class, you independently select three oral histories to listen to and summarize using three of the six types of summary frames from your notes. You will pair up twice to share your findings and listen to your partner's findings.
Day 3: Together in class, we will discuss interview prep, including resources to use, ethics and other considerations. Turn in a list of the people you plan to interviewee, making sure to list your relation to that person.
Days 4-8 (plus weekend): Conduct your oral her-stories outside of class and type up a list of (at least) 10 questions you posed to your interviewee, as well as a 200-250 word abstract of the purpose of each recorded interview.
Days 9-10: You will give a five-minute presentation focusing on both of your interviewees, discussing highlights from your interview, information you found surprising or interesting, or comparing/contrasting the experience of the two interviewees with each other or what your previous assumptions about a topic were before learning about the topic from your interviewees (i.e. raising children, seeking promotions at work). Your video and transcript should be uploaded to the class wiki by the end of day 12.
Resources:
Grading:
40% - Content - Student has collected a complete biography of both interviewees, focusing on major life events and all aspects listed above in the "Task" section
20% - Preparation - It is evident that the student conducted research on his/her interviewees, prepared appropriate questions and follow-up questions, and transitioned effectively between topics
15% - Typed Questions & Abstract - Student has provided a list of at least ten questions asked to the interviewees, as well as a 200-250 word abstract on each interview
10% - Presentation - Student has effectively, and in five minutes, summarized both of his/her interviewees' oral histories to the class
10% - Etiquette - Student has demonstrated professionalism and courtesy in dress, language, body language, humor and graciousness to the interviewees
5% - Archive - Student has posted working links to the videos and transcripts to the class wiki by the end of day 12
Wiki Project
Ms. Barbee's Honors English II
I decided to design a wiki page based around an Honors English II syllabus from a friend who teaches at Wando High School. I have included six main headings: Important Documents, Readings, Notes, Presentations, Discussion, and Major Written Assignments. My goal with this week’s project was to create a wiki that is well organized, allows students to showcase their work, makes it easy for students to retrieve important documents, and clearly conveys my expectations.
The semester is divided into seven units, each of which have their own page under the “Readings” template. Here, I will post PDFs to readings that are not included in the students’ textbooks. Check out Unit 1 for examples. Posting links to the readings make it so I don’t have to worry about emailing links out to individual students. Instead of asking me where to find readings, I can provide all the documents necessary on this wiki.
The next template, entitled “Notes,” will be a place for students to both access and publish notes on readings and any other discussions we have learned in class, organized by unit. Check out Unit 2 notes for examples of what I might post. I anticipate using this page for the following purposes:
My next heading is “Presentations.” Students will be responsible for creating various independent/small-group presentations throughout the course of the semester. If you go to the “Book Trailers” tab, you will see where I have posted directions for the assignment, a rubric, and examples of book trailers that I have personally created.
The following heading is a link to the class discussion board. Every week, I will post five discussion prompts. Students must respond to two of them with a passage of 250-500 words per response. Students must also post a 100-word minimum response to three of their classmates. Individual responses would be due three days before the deadline, ensuring students stay on track with reading and allowing students time to respond to each other’s posts. Responses to posts will be due the final day of the week (Sunday at 11:59PM). Check out “Week 1” for a list of potential prompts.
My final tab is for “Major Written Assignments.” We will hypothetically have three major written assignments over the course of the semester – an argument essay, a narrative essay, and a research paper. This tab is a place for students to post their outlines, rough drafts, final drafts and any other required documents. If I wanted to do a collaborative writing assignment, I feel like wikispaces.com would be a great avenue to utilize for that. This space would definitely be used to workshop student essays, and I think it would be a great venue for me to provide feedback quicker than I may be able to do via individual conferencing in the classroom (although I am a large proponent of face-to-face conferencing!) Check out “Research Essay” for examples of files I might have in this tab.
While this assignment was time-consuming, I enjoyed thinking about how I could format the Wiki to be as organized as possible. I want my students to be able to access information and collaborate with ease. I definitely feel like this wiki hits at least three of the four C’s with regards to teaching with technology: communication (allows me to communicate my expectations and instructions for assignments and for students to respond to those instructions), collaboration (allow my students to work with each other on group presentations, writing assignments and reading responses) and critical thinking (my students are expected to write critical responses to at least two of the five discussion prompts I’ll issue each week). As far as creativity goes, the wiki really hits on that, as well. Having the chance to showcase their work, and really just knowing that their work will be accessible by their peers, will hopefully motivate students to learn from their peers and attempt to create something unique/different from their peers. I can definitely see myself using a wiki for each ELA course that I teach when I get hired!
Blog
As groups win and lose challenges and leadership positions fluctuate within groups, it will be essential to discuss how changes in group dynamics in the novel can be compared to changes in group dynamics in our classroom experience. I thought it would be a great idea to have each student create an individual blog in which he/she reflects on group dynamics, completes activities, and writes narrative-style entries. All of these blogs will be visible to other students, and groups can use their blogs as strategical tools in order to indirectly manipulate the strategy of the other group. To be more precise, a student could allude to using a certain strategy for completing a challenge, knowing that others will read his/her entry, when the student actually plans on using an alternate secret strategy. If this seems a little confusing, it’s because the assignment is intended to confuse and trick. Characters in The Lord of the Flies use manipulation to get others to do their bidding. Obviously, I will have to be conscientious about my role in monitoring the blog activity, since it is possible for students to get too overwhelmed or involved with the competitive aspect of the activity.
Students will create their blogs on the first day, write an introductory profile entry (similar to one from the Survivor website) and include a picture of him or herself with the team banner in the background and wearing the team accessory. I will include links to all of my students’ blogs under a “Lord of the Flies Blogs” tab on my class wiki. Students will be encouraged to use the blog site Weebly https://education.weebly.com/. This site will allow me to monitor the blog activity. Students will write in their blogs daily. Length and type of writing assignments will vary and be geared towards meeting a variety of writing standards. I hope that my students will not only be receptive to the idea of daily writing but that they will be enthusiastic about truly immersing themselves in the novel. I think that type of immersion method is a great way to get kids excited about learning, and that if they are having fun, they are more likely to retain what they are learning and apply their knowledge to other areas.
Educational Technology
Article:
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/jaw-dropping-classroom-3d-printer-todd-finley
In “Jaw-Dropping Classroom 3D Printer Creations,” Todd Finley defines 3D printing, explains what students can create with 3D printers, and further elaborates on the potential of 3D printing. In laymen’s terms, 3D printing is a process in which “solid 3D objects are created, one layer of material after another, from a single digital file” (Finley). There are three ways to accomplish this process: by creating an original object using a 3D modeling program, by downloading a modifiable 3D template from a website, or using a 3D scanner to take your own measurements of an object. When it comes to creating objects with 3D printers, the sky seems to be the limit. The devices have produced prosthetic body parts, bones, food, clothing, musical instruments, cars, fully functioning guns, and even houses.
I was very excited to read in the article that the price of 3D printers are going down to about $500 (although the author notes that top-rated models cost more). While I don’t know of any teachers in the CCSD who currently use this technology, I imagine many teachers representing different subject areas would be excited about this technology and students would be enthusiastic about having a more tactile experience in the classroom. While I have never used a 3D printer, I would be excited about learning how to use one and teaching students how to use it. It would be especially neat for me to 3D print book covers for all my students’ writing pieces over the course of the semester to either give to them at the end of the school year or use as an annual class anthology to keep on my bookshelf. I can’t stop thinking about ways to use this technology and look forward to learning about how other teachers, specifically ELA teachers, might use it in their classrooms!
Social Media Project
Instagram! Teens are obsessed with filtering, posting, liking, commenting...why not harness this obsession and gear it towards a vocabulary exercise?! For my vocabulary activity, I want to use a (possibly pre-existing) class Instagram account for students to create a post for each of the ten vocabulary words for our unit (in this case, on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass). Depending on the size of my class, I will assign 1-3 students to a vocabulary word. The students will have to complete the following assignment for their vocabulary word:
- Using yourselves and/or any props appropriate/relevant, take a picture that illustrates the definition of your word
- Create a caption for your post, including:
- The definition(s) of the word
- Part of speech of the word
- Pronunciation of the word
- Etymology of the word
- A sentence using the word (it might be a good idea to align your picture with the sentence you create!)
The sentences from the captions in the Instagram posts will be used, in some capacity, when the students take their vocabulary quiz at the end of the week. My hope is that by having the chance to use technology they are already familiar with, students will be more invested in the assignment and more successful at retaining definitions of our words.One way to make the assignment more exciting is to give students the chance to vote for their top three favorite examples. The winners will be recognized in my class newsletter/bulletin/blog.
Examples of vocabulary words from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:
1. Invoke
2. Sunder
3. Interposition
4. Chattel
5. Pretension
6. Yoke
7. Abolitionist
8. Conspire
9. Emancipate
10. Impertinent
Revision Project
For my revision project, I decided to update my original Prezi on the historical context of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
I liked my original newspaper headline format because I thought it matched well with the topic of historical context, but I felt like my content in the original was too wordy. I know my students would look at all the words on the page and groan.
To improve my page, I decided to eliminate and/or break up some of the text by supplementing it with YouTube videos narrating some of the historical context I'd previously written about in the original version. I did this because I thought that delivering the information through different modes would help keep my students engaged.
I also think I did a better job on the transitions from slide to slide in my new Prezi. After learning more about Prezi, I figured out how to zoom in on certain areas, which I believe will help my students know what information to focus on and prevent them from being overwhelmed by too much surrounding text.
Course Reflection
Having the chance to create projects with a different mode of technology each week was helpful. In the process of creating the weekly assignments, I would often see how a certain platform (like a Prezi) could be an appropriate mode for a certain work of literature or lesson to teach. In conjunction with the readings, having the chance to explore the technology hands on helped reinforce the important thing to remember about technology –- not all technology is good for all purposes. You must select the type of technology that will best enable you to enhance the learning of the students.
I want my students to have a chance to do assignments similar to those my classmates and I created over the course of the semester. Although we didn’t complete an actual oral history interview, I was very excited about the prospect of doing so with my students. A strength I saw in this mode of technology was that it really allows students to take control of their process and their final product. They are allowed a great deal of choice over who to interview within structured expectations of how the interview and transcription should be completed. One activity I found very helpful was the Windows Moviemaker digital storytelling assignment. I’ve used Windows Moviemaker several times for a previous class but I feel like I learn something new every time I return to that technology. It is highly time-consuming and thus I learned to “work smarter, not necessarily harder.” As far as an assignment that was not as helpful as I thought it would be, I suppose I’d have to go with the emerging technology assignment. While I was interested in hearing what everyone found, I would have liked the chance to explore some of these technologies in class hands-on. The same goes for the readings. I would have liked to explore some of the technologies mentioned in the readings in class together.
My conception of technology in the classroom has definitely changed. With so many available technologies, it is easier for teachers to go about use technology simply for the sake of using it. Participating in this class has reinforced the need to use technology deliberately and to always keep in mind the purpose of using that technology –- what do I want my students to learn? I’ve had a lot of fun doing these assignments and truly hope that my students will have fun and immerse themselves in their projects, as well. I’m also more aware than ever that technology evolves at a rapid pace. While I feel like I’ve caught up significantly, I know I’m probably still behind. That being said, I definitely have the humility to let my students demonstrate how to use technology if they’re clearly experts. Just because I’m being paid to teach doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be learning from my students! At the end of this class, I am more prepared, less overwhelmed, and ready to put some of my creations into action when I start student-teaching in January.